What an exciting wedding we have today!
So.very.exciting!!!
First, we have to wish our featured couple, a very special FIRST ANNIVERSARY!
Happy anniversary Shubhra & Piyush! Thank you very much for sharing your wedding us.
Shubhra contacted us and wanted to surprise her husband by hoping to be featured on The Big Fat Indian Wedding. We’re thrilled that she’s sharing her story with us. How awesome is this?!
We just want to say that it is a great honor to have you both as featured wedding couples with us.
And now for the amazing fun part to share their story. They had a global wedding that started in everyone’s dreamy wedding world of the famous blue city of Rajasthan, Udaipur!
I just want to say I LOVE Shubhra’s Ritu Kumar red wedding lengha and Manish Arora pink lengha. Let us all stop for a moment and bask in Shubhra’s bridal beauty.
As us Gujaratis would say, ketlu sundar che!
Also, I love the local Rajasthani dancers present for the wedding. We had dancers with large pots on their headers and those brimming with fire.
Tell us about the wedding!
This was a Hindu wedding at India’s best wedding location, Jagmandir Lake Palace Udaipur. I am from from Delhi and Piyush is from Ahmedabad and we met in Washington, USA.
We had a traditional Hindu Uttar Pradesh style and almost 10 events in a row! It was a glamorized fun wedding. And both our ‘families background come from Kanpur UP.
The first event started from 25th May and the last reception was 8th June. We really had a worldwide wedding. We started in the Udaipur City Palace. Our engagement ceremony took place at Udaivillas, Sangeet at Zenana Mahal, Mehendi & Haldi at City Palace and Wedding at Jagmandir (Lake Palace). From Udaipur, we whisked off for a cocktail party at Shiro in Delhi, followed by a double reception at the Ahmedabadh YMCA and Double Tree by Hilton in Delhi,
We had a midnight ceremony which meant our wedding started around midnight and finished well after dawn! You’ll see in the photos that the wedding ends in full light. For the pheras and saptpadi, the bride is suppose to wear yellow; which I incorporated in my lehenga saree. We also used an orange colored sindoor to fill the maang instead of red because it is purer form of tikka powder.
In our tradition of vidai, it takes place in ‘taaro ki chao‘. The brother picks up the bride in arms to drop till the groom’s car (a boat, in our case). Before the vidai, we play fun games with the groom and his friends, joota chori by bridesmaid (sisters and friends). At the time of vidai, the bride adds black bangles as a sign of ‘Buri Nazar se Bachana’.
What was the inspiration for your wedding?
My childhood dream of having a ‘big fat indian wedding’! All credits to my Dad and my family for making my dream come true. They visit dozens of places before finalizing some very beautiful and luxurious places in India. The wedding at Udaipur’s Jag Mandir Lake Palace is truly special and something I will never forget.
I wore wearing dresses inspired from different cultures- Christian White gown, Muslim Sharara, Shakuntala half saree for Haldi, western fusion for Mehendi and Hindi rajwada for the wedding. That meant doing a lot of shopping in a lot of different places! The sharara came from Lucknow, the sarees from Delhi, the green mehndi outfit from Satya Paul, the Rajwada lengha from Ritu Kumar, the pink peacock lengha came from Manish Arora, and the fusion gown from Kimaya’s. The jewelry was all custom ordered.
What was the hardest part about wedding planning?
Nothing at all.
Because there were no professional event management, we enjoyed and involved more into each aspect of our wedding functions. We were able to personalize everything to both our families tastes.
Did you do any DIY (do it yourself) or special projects/things at the wedding?
With help of my family, we designed and planned the whole wedding. No professional event management team were hired. It was a lot of work, but I am thankful for everyone’s involvement to pull together the wedding.
What was your favorite part of the wedding?
My Dad, family (including in-laws), venues and dressings. 😀
What words of advice do you have for future brides/grooms-to-be?
Enjoy your wedding without stress because you are pampered the most during your wedding. Trust your family and live this moment at BEST!
Anything else you would like to add?
A Marriage is not just two people together, but families bonding and becoming stronger.
Oh and Udaipur in the summertime sounds really hot. But because of the lake proximity, it was cool. God made each day pleasant by giving sunshowers just before the event or at early morning and made our evenings breezy and pleasant.
Thank you so much Shubhra! We wish you both the very best in happiness, love and strength.
Now lovelies, grab that cup of chai and check out these beautiful wedding photos from Rajasthan!
